Transcript for Podcast: 'My Whole Life's Been a Story'

Date: 10/25/2007 | Time: 00:11:45 | Size: 13.4 MB

NCFY staff member Ericka Blount Danois talks to a young man whose life was given meaning by a runaway and homeless youth outreach worker.

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EBD: Welcome to the second podcast by the National Clearinghouse on Families and Youth, where we’ll be taking a look at runaway and homeless youth services, supported by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Family and Youth Services Bureau.  I’m Ericka Blount Danois, a writer and editor for the Clearinghouse. 

In this podcast, we’ll share the personal story of a formerly homeless youth, nineteen-year-old Wonell Jones, who was aided by the Latin American Youth Center or LAYC, a youth-serving organization located in the Mount Pleasant neighborhood of Washington, D.C.  LAYC is one of many programs across America that are funded by the Family and Youth Services Bureau to help young people running from or being asked to leave homes characterized by abuse, neglect, or parental drug and alcohol abuse. 

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I spoke with Wonell at one of LAYC’s residential facilities for runaway and homeless youth.  Wearing a backwards baseball cap and braids with cowry shells at the end, he told me about how he became homeless and directionless at age seventeen, how he got help from LAYC, and how a youth worker named Elmer Diaz turned his life around.  Some of the music featured in this podcast is from In My Life, a song by Wonell’s group ITS. 

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WJ:   I was a troubled teen.  I had no direction.  My life took a fast turn.  Things with my pops wasn’t going so right, wasn’t going so well.  Like we always was going at it, at each other’s throats and stuff.  So it got to the point where I packed my bags and left.  I wasn’t even staying with grandmother either.  So I was basically staying on the street.  So I didn’t have no clothes, no nothing.  I was sleeping at like park benches or bus stops, stuff like that.  [music]

I had a good upbringing, basically from my grandmother and my father too.  But, you know, my mother she really wasn’t in my life, you know.  I haven’t seen her since I was six.  And she had a real bad drug problem as well as my father, you know.  So that’s why me and my father didn’t get along.  I was up in age.  And I was always running away.  Or sometimes he’d put me out. 

EBD: What about school? Did you leave school at some point?

WJ:   Yeah, I left school.  I said, man, forget school.  It wasn’t for me.  That’s basically around the time I was out here robbing people, you know, just selling drugs, hanging on the corner, on the streets and stuff like that.  I was like I don’t need school.  That’s how I felt at the time.  Nothing to offer to me. 

I was known as an honor roll student at first.  And then when they started noticing things like me not coming to school or my attitude, my whole personality changed at that point.  Whereas like I really ain’t talk to nobody.  I kept to myself.  You know, my main reason for coming to school was just to get something to eat.  After I’d eat they’d see me on the camera leaving out the back door.  So basically, school was a place for me to come eat and go to sleep. 

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I heard something about LAYC.  I went to the youth center.  They told me to come down here.  I had to go through like three, three interviews.  And then I finally met Elmer.  And he was told he was going to be my case manager.  Well, he seemed like he was a nice guy. 

At that point in my life, I hadn’t too much direction.  I didn’t have no set path, no goals to meet.  Everything was like dead to me.  I was out there ... I was robbing people.  I was stealing.  I was caught up into a lot of stuff, a lot of gang violence and stuff like that. 

I owe everything to Elmer, you know.  He talked to me, gave me counseling.  He had let me ride with him.  And he would talk to me in his car.  He’d be telling me, man, you can’t be doing these things.  You can’t be selling drugs.  You can’t be out here doing this and that.  He said you need a job, you can come to me to get a job.  I can help you.  That’s what I’m here for.  You got any problems, you can come to me. 

I’ve been with Elmer for almost three years.  I owe everything to that man.  He got me two jobs.  He helped me like when I first found out I was having a baby.  I was scared.  He talked to me.  Letting me say it’s all right to be scared.  It’s natural for you to be scared.  It’s your first time having a child.  I didn’t know what I was going to do.  But he made me feel better.  He talked to me.  So, now I’m confident about having my child, I’m looking forward to it. 

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EBD:  What’s been the transition from, you know, being out on the street and then having a job? 

WJ:   I look at it as a good thing.  I mean, everything’s a hustle.  What you do ... if you’re on the corner selling, that’s a hustle.  But when you working, that’s an honest hustle.  That’s a hustle you’re doing that you’re making legal money.  And nobody tells you, oh, you can’t do this.  You can’t get arrested for it.  So I enjoy working.  You now, honestly, I’m making an honest living.  I’m working two jobs.  It’s good to have honest money in my pocket.  I don’t have to look over my shoulder and stuff.  I don’t have to rob people or none of that.  I look forward to just working, saving my money up, putting it up towards my child. 

EBD:  What do your friends say about you working these two jobs? 

WJ:   Some of them they stuck on the street like they’re like, working 9:00 to 5:00.  Other people, they say, no.  I wish I could get a job.  I wish I could work.  Ask me how I would get that job.  They wished they could come out of that street life. 

EBD:  Do you see yourself doing what Elmer does at some point? 

WJ:   Yeah.  I mean, I would like to work with youth.  I took up a peer mediating class when I was ... when I got back in school.  When students have problems, teens my own age, I could talk to them.  Because I’ve been through what they’re going through, maybe even worse.  My whole life been a story, you know. 

So I could cope with what they’re going through.  I would tell them, hey look.  You ain’t got to do this.  You’re entitled to do what you want to.  I can’t tell you what you can and you can’t do.  But I can help give you the right information, some guidance to what you want to do, where you want to go.  You’ve got problems, you could come to me. 

EBD:  Now, I know too that you also have ambitions to work in the music industry.  So tell me a little bit about that. 

WJ:   One day I was sitting down eating lunch at this table right here and I heard ... I heard some beats.  I heard somebody rapping.  So I jumped up.  I was like who that?  And it was Elmer.  I was like what?  Well, he was like, oh, you rap?  I said, yes.  For sure, I rap.  That’s a bet. 

So he ... we started ... we call it free styling.  It came to a nightly session.  Elmer would say, all right.  You all finished with you all’s chores?  Come on upstairs.  And after that, we got to thinking we was like, man.  We should have our own group.  So the guy Dane ... Elmer came up with a name called ITS.  It stands for Influencing The System.  And we talk about where we’re going through, what we’ve been through, me and Dane.  As two youth that been homeless, been out on the street, it gave us something to look forward to, something we enjoy doing. 

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"In My Life" Lyrics:

In my life, gotta keep my head right. No matter the weather, I tell you I shall prevail. This life ain’t no game out here, the picture’s clear, can’t you see? People dying from AIDS and HIV. You can’t sugar coat it, ‘cause this life ain’t sweet. Homeless people trying to survive out here on the street, trying to figure out where their next meal is coming from. Heartbeatin’ fast as a drum, ‘cause someone told you that they loved you. Now they’re bringin’ peer pressure…

WJ:   I mean, when I first started off rapping, I was rapping about, oh, I’ll shoot you or I’ll rob you, I’m slanging this, I’m doing that.  You know what I’m saying.  But then once I got on some positive stuff, like you’ve got some people they don’t want to hear it. 

So when they heard it, they was like what?  What’d you say?  I actually have cousins that ... young cousins, they looked up to me because of the stuff I was doing on the streets, the bad stuff.  And once I was doing positive stuff, they said, oh, you’re not fun anymore.  I said what you mean I’m not fun anymore?  Because I don’t want to smoke weed?  I don’t want to sell drugs.  I don’t want to rob nobody no more.  I want to work.  I want to finish school.  I want to setup a good foundation for myself.  What the streets got to offer but death?  A lot of my friends are dead right now. 

EBD:  So you’ve actually lived this life.  So you know it’s not anything to glamorize. 

WJ:   Right, it’s not.  Being locked up is not nothing ... it’s not nothing good.  People rapping how they could serve time like it’s nothing.  Me personally, I’ve been in there for like a year.  I’m like I couldn’t take it.  I was going crazy.  Jail can turn you crazy.  It’s hell.  Another grown person telling another grown person when they can ... what they can and can’t do, you know, it’s not nothing good. 

EBD:  Tell me now, who are some of the people who are closest to you and why. 

WJ:   Right now, I’ve got to say Elmer.  Elmer and my grandmother, you know.  And the mother of my child, she’s been supporting me too.  But Elmer, I owe him a lot.  You know, that’s why I’ve got something planned for him.  So I hope he don’t hear this right now.  But I got something planned for Elmer where I want to thank him.  I owe him my life.  If it weren’t for him, I could be dead right now. 

EBD:  Well, tell me too ... I know Elmer played a big part in it.  But what about you?  What was the turning point for you?  Because you also had to make that decision for yourself to make a change. 

WJ:   I had people that cared about me.  At first, I felt like I had nobody that cared about me.  So fighting and shooting, I didn’t care.  I didn’t feel like anybody would miss me.  But when I seen that he looked hurt and concerned about me and, you know, that right there, that really touched my heart. 

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EBD:  After our interview, Wonell walked out with me to my car.  As we walked down the street, he said hi to everyone we passed.  Everyone knew him.  They asked him about his child to be and wanted to know how he was doing.  A few days later, on August 17th, Wonell’s son was born.  Wonell had prepared for his son’s birth by participating in LAYC’s fatherhood program which provided him with resources and counseling to prepare him for parenthood.  He says he intends to continue onto college, so he can be a father to his son Willet Meyer. 

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